Improvement in sharpening attachments to forks



u. M. CHURCH & w. F GILBERT.

Sharpening Attachment to Forks. No.l59,794.

Patented Feb. 16,1875.

THE GRAPHIC CO.PHOTO .LIHLSQ 8=41 PARK PL AGEJLYC DWIGHT M. CHURCH AND WILLIAM F. GILBERT, OF DERBY, CONNECTICUT.

IMPROVEMENT IN SHARPENING ATTACHMENTS TO FORKS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 159,794, dated February 16, 1875; application filed December 23, 1874.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, DWIGHT M. CHURCH and WM. F. GILBERT, both of Derby, Connecticut, have invented certain Improvements in Carving-Forks; and We do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the drawings which accompany and form part of this specification, is a description of our invention suficient to enable those skilled in the art to practice it.

The object of our invention is to construct the guard of a carving-fork in such a novel v manner that, in addition to its serving as a guard, it shall also do duty as a steel to hone the knife, and likewise as a \/-shaped sharpener, thus including three important functions in a guard, and without making it at all clumsy or cumbrous.

In the drawings, Figure I is a side View, and Fig. 2 a plan, of a carving-fork having our improvements applied thereto in place of the ordinary guard. Fig. 3 shows the guard in relation to the spring beneath it, and Fig. 4 the guard detached from the fork.

The guard A (shown closed in all the figures, except in dotted lines in Fig. 1,) is made of hardened steel, and of tapering cylindrical form, as shown. Its surface is roughened, after the manner of steels used in carving sets, and it is hinged to the shank of the fork, and provided with a spring, I), as customary, to hold it either in its open or closed position, a thumb piece or extension, 0, facilitating this opening or closing by the thumb of the person holding and using it without any need of employing the carvers other hand, or the tip of the knife held in such hand, for this purpose of opening or closing. This thumb-piece also serves, by the pressure of the thumb upon it, to hold it securely open, and against the liability to be closed by the action of the knife against the hone or rattail guard when the carver is whetting his knife upon it. The guard has a forward projection, d, a lower edge of which forms one of two sharpening or knifelike edges, and this edge, in conjunction with a similar straight edge on the upper side of a piece of steel, 6, set into the side of the guard,

forms a V-shaped sharpener, through which the edge of the carving-knife may be drawn to give it an edge, the guard A taking the place of and superseding the usual separate steel for honing the knife.

It will now be seen that while a thumb-piece, honing-steel, and Vsharpener are all added to the fork, yet the latter is not sensibly heavier, nor in the least awkward or inconvenient, and the space occupied by these attachments is practically no more than is required by an ordinary guard which performs no other duty but that of a guard only.

When the hone is sprung open by the carver for use as a guard, it is then in its most convenient position for use as a hone, and at the juncture when the carver discovers that his knife is dull, and the sharpening-blades or converging edges, both of which are carried by this swinging guard, and located near its joint or hinge, are also then in the most convenient position for use as a sharpener; but these devices may also be used when the guard is down.

In some cases, if desired, the roughened guard A may be made Without the blades or edges 01 6; but we prefer to unite all these features in the fork, as shown, especially as the blades are inexpensive, and add to the tasteful appearance of the fork, while also the cutting-edges mutually so cover and protect each other that there is no danger of being cut by the blades in handling.

We claim 1. A carving-fork provided with a roughenedsurface honing-steel A, applied to the fork and serving as the guard, substantially as shown and described.

2. A carvingfork having a guard furnished with two converging sharpening-blades, located near its joint, and adapted for use as a knife-sharpener, both when-the guard is swung open and when it is closed.

DWIGHT M. CHURCH. WILLIAM F. GILBERT. Witnesses:

Tnos. S. BIRDSEY, S. B. GREGORY. 

